As a dauntless opinion writer I was tempted to join Truth Social

 By Hal Brown

Above: Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.

Caricature by DonkeyHotey

Currently I depend on various websites to report on what Trump posts on his Truth Social platform. For example Raw Story has a story about a particularly unhinged and wack-a-toon post:

Trump obviously hoped to make money from Truth Social.

He also no doubt wanted bragging rights about how many millions of followers he had there compared to when he was on Twitter.

The failure to achieve these goals have turned out to be irrelevant because Trump now has his own megaphone. He totally controls it. While not everything he posts there is widely shared in the media he can throw random shit at the wall and see what sticks in the media.  

Trump isn't on Twitter. Elon Musk, no doubt wanting him to start tweeting again to boost Twitter's statistics, reinstated him. His most recent tweet is from January 8, 2021 when he was supposedly permanently banned.

I doubt Trump would go back to making Twitter tweets because he has an agreement with Truth Social to post there six hours before he posts anywhere else. Not only that, but he would have to admit that Truth Social failed and Elon Musk had more business acumen than he did.

Just as all major media outlets have staff assigned to watching Fox News and keeping up with other right-wing media, and finding tweets to add to articles which are relevant to the subject being covered, they have staff assigned to monitoring Truth Social. It's nice work if you can get it, and can stand watching Tucker Carlson if you're assigned to Fox News, since you can do it from home.  

I could get on Truth Social for free. I could watch Fox News. I could check out all the online right-wing websites. I probably would come up with ideas for what I hope would be an original and perhaps particularly snarky take on something for this blog.

This would mean devoting a lot of time suffering through watching and reading, to put it bluntly, a lot of crap. I am retired and nobody has decided offer to pay me to do this, plus if they did it would have to be lot of money for me to even agree to devote a few hours a day to doing this.

If I joined the platform, aside from writing about Trump's Truth Social posts, I might wile away some time screwing around with Trump by replying to his posts with over-the-top fawning replies dripping with thinly veiling sarcasm aimed at stroking his ego. I wouldn't be critical of him, what's the fun in that? He'd probably never see my posts. All that would accomplish is trying to see if I could get kicked off the platform and that would only get me a subject for one blog.

The fun of flippant fawning would be to try to get Trump to "re-Truth" (his version of a re-tweet) a reply he thinks is complementary to something he posts when in fact it comes from someone who thinks he might be gullible enough to believe I am a member of his cult.

Therefore, here's my decision: 

Sorry, MSNBC, Raw Story, HUFFPOST, Daily Beast, et. al, I'm not going to accept bundles of cash to be one of your work-from-home right-wing media monitors. Besides, I figure most of you are using interns to do this.

Tempted as I am, I won't join Truth Social, and "truth" be told, part of the reason is that I am a little afraid I might enjoy posting there so much I'd become addicted to this useless endeavor.

Addendum:

Remember this guy?

Truth Social is run by Trump Media & Technology Group, and headed by Devin Nunes. In 2022, Talking Points Memo stated Nunes' remuneration was $750,000 per year.

From Newsweek:  

Devin Nunes' Cow Celebrates Congressman's Resignation 

You can read a lot more about Truth Social on Wikipedia here.

I'm (almost) 80. I want to die knowing America is safely a democracy.

  

By Hal Brown

Click above to enlarge

Reading the following got me to thinking about being a year shy of my eightieth birthday and not living to find out if America as been plunged into a fascist dystopia.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough doesn't think Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will run for president in 2024, and he doesn't think he should.

The Republican governor has generated some excitement among donors and has polled strongly against the former president, who has already entered the race, but the "Morning Joe" host cautioned DeSantis against launching a challenge.

"Why in the world would it make sense for Ron DeSantis to run in 2024 if Donald Trump is running?" Scarborough said. "Here you have a guy who is raising hundreds of millions of dollars. He's got the stage in his state that he completely dominates. He won by a landslide in 2022 because the Democrats didn't challenge him. He now has a run of the entire state top to bottom. He could serve his second term, keep holding his press conferences, keep raising money, keep upping his game, let Donald Trump run in '24 and lose yet again, and then Joe Biden leaves and the '28 election -- I'm just speculating if people are advising him." (Raw Story)

I think that the current most likely GOP candidate, Trump, is the most beatable if he runs against President Biden. Despite his cult following he is becoming more and more deranged and his unhinged behavior is turning off moderate Republicans and Independents. Put another way, the nomination is his to lose and he is well on his way to losing it.

I also don't think DeSantis, who is the second most probable GOP candidate as things stand now, would prevail over Biden. Trump had the star power but DeSantis is as bland as unseasoned tofu. Flo from the Progressive Insurance TV commercials has exponentially more charisma than DeSantis.

This doesn't mean that he couldn't hone his act to appeal to a national audience if he doesn't run for president now and, as Joe Scarborough suggested, run next time.

My biggest fear is that Joe Biden won't be able to run again. The Democrats obviously don't have a viable backup candidate. The likely choice would be Kamala Harris. While she was the obvious choice to represent the United States at the Munich Conference I hate to say that the interview she gave with Andrea Mitchell, one, wouldn't reach a huge audience, and two more significantly while she demonstrated the chops to be president she wasn't, dare I say, on fire in her delivery.

Since I am currently physically and mentally healthy I expect that I have a good chance of living with my cognitive faculties intact for a few more years.   

I will most likely to be around blogging like a wordaholic and closely following the news  right up to the election. I will find out who wins the next election for president and whether the Democrats maintain control of the Senate and regain control of the House.

If the next president is a Republican, any Republican, I know I will be scared shitless about the future of our democracy.

If, at the least, Biden or another Democrats wins I will be able to breathe a gargantuan sigh of relief even if it is a close election, which is likely.